Disclaimer: I don't own The Owl House!

Title: Fuck the PCA

Summary: Bump, desperate for extra staff, brings a reluctant Eda into Hexside as a wild magic tutor. None of them expected just how much she'd end up loving it.

Chapter Title: Eda swears at teens

...

Figuring out custody with Camila had been a bit difficult. Not because either of them were being obstinate, but because schooling was a must on both ends of the portal. Luz Noceda couldn't just... vanish off the damn map forever. Cops would be swarming the house looking for her, and though Eda was quite fond of the human realm, having their worlds collide via swat teams was not a great way to bridge that gap.

They'd been seriously lucky last time, with Vee. But Vee was her own person, and she deserved to live life as such.

The middle ground they eventually found was a mix of homeschooling with Hexside. Luz had missed a good chunk of her freshman year, and it had caused her massive difficulties when she returned and her grades suddenly tanked while she caught up. This way she could learn human stuff on her own time, and magic stuff during the typical school hours. Magic didn't usually have a homeschooling option without a mentorship, but Luz wasn't exactly the average student- she needed time to figure things out without her glyphs- so Bump had generously gifted her study days.

(It was weird to think that the Titan had been alive all this time. Dying, dead, purgatory-ed, whatever you wanna call it. He'd spent his whole afterlife watching over King, and that meant he knew her pretty well. But she'd never gotten to say the same.)

(She hopes she did decent by him. That he hadn't been wounded by King choosing to take her last name, or those nights as a baby when he'd had nightmares and called her mama. She hopes that he felt King was in good hands.)

Which is a long-winded way of saying that Eda doesn't expect her to show up to every damn class. She barely expects any of the kids to show up for her class. Her official title is as a volunteer tutor- which was Bump's fancy way of avoiding the PCA's ire by having a long-time criminal in on school grounds (again). Her class isn't a requirement or anything to graduate. Hell, her room is still damaged by the Collector's attacks, leaving a good owl beast-sized hole in the windowed side that's haphazardly covered by a tarp. Nothing about this is necessary- or even technically legal. Which makes it the kind of legal she likes!

Luz is seriously determined to make the first one, however, and she's the first in the door. She runs up to Eda with her arms out for a hug, and it feels like the bad kind of illegal to ignore a hug, planting an obnoxiously loud kiss on her forehead for good measure. She'd intended to work her way up to kisses, once upon a time, but then her kid was cut off from her for a summer and it was all she could do to not keep kissing Luz and King's faces all day.

(Motherhood is weird, and sappy, and basically all the things Eda likes to pretend she isn't. It's a process.)

"You're gonna kill it," Luz says when they pull apart, all smiles and confidence.

"Well, I'm gonna kill something," Eda shoots back, ruffling hair. Luz eagerly crowds into a front row seat as her friends trickle in just behind her. "Boots. Goops. Willow. Goldilocks."

"Why is Willow the only name you remember?" Hunter asks, eyebrows raised, as he takes his seat two away from Luz.

"Because Willow is the only one of you twerps who could kick my butt and I'm not touching that."

"Wise choice," Willow says, setting a flower on her desk as she passes.

Amity glances at the board as she passes, no doubt judging her name being written in big block letters, then sits next to Luz without incident. Willow is beside her, and after Hunter goes Gus. They basically crowd the whole dang row.

Eda, hand on her hip, lets out a low cackle. "Oh, wow. I don't have favorite children or anything."

A few more make their way in before the bell. It's technically the last call bell, since school is over. She's an after-school tutor. Eda recognizes a few faces- those multi-track kids Luz hangs with, the Blight twins, that weird Construction kid Gus knows, and a few incidentals. The real shock comes in the form of a little Bard girl and the three-eyed chick Eda knows bullied her daughter.

"Sorry we're late," the Bard apologizes, and Eda knows she has a soft spot for Bards, okay, she does, but this kid is bouncing on the balls of her feet and it's adorable and Eda can't even be mad. She pulls the three-eyed girl closer. "Boscha's here as my emotional support."

"Gross, Skara," Boscha snaps, but doesn't pull away. "I'm just here to make fun of the trashy old biddy."

There's been plenty of rumors about this Boscha girl. Rumors Eda's been stuck listening to from the rampage of children that come in her house. She'd quit Grudgby due to being unable to hold the ball. Apparently she'd taken quite a digger during a fight with Kikimora- and, sure enough, Eda clocks her shaky left hand struggling to close and the slight weight she puts on Skara as her leg trembles.

Damnit. Eda knows the feeling. She hates that she recognizes herself in this little goblin child. But she does, so she stashes away any childish plans for revenge until they're on an equal playing field.

"Siddown," she reminds them finally, when Boscha noticed her stare and glared at her. "And don't try any of that crap you pull with regular teachers. This is after-school hours, and turnabout's fair play."

Skara eagerly guided Boscha further in. Boscha didn't seem to need the help, really- it's a slight gimp, nothing major- but she still acted like she was going to keel over if she didn't carefully maneuver around her desk with both hands to sit down. And Eda relates a lot to that too- overcompensating, trying to feel like she's "disabled enough" to need help, never quite making the mark. Whatever. Not her job.

This is her job.

"Welcome to wild magic study hall, or whatever Bump decided to call this stupid thing." Eda gestures to the board. "I'm Eda, the Owl Lady. The mere idea of you calling me miss makes me want to die inside, so let's keep it to Eda, alright? I'm here to teach you jerkwads what wild magic is. Anyone got any guesses?"

Jerbo raised a hand. "Mixing tracks?"

Edric seems like he's buzzing as he eagerly shouted, "Using magic for weapons!"

"Illegal junk," Boscha calls, rolling her eyes.

Eda sends some finger guns their way. "For now! We're working on the, uh, whole dismantling the government thing. But wild magic is more than mixing a few tracks. Wild magic is using different magics at once to create something new. Everyone always thinks that means it's super difficult, but it's not! We do it every single day. You kids know how to make fire?"

There was a couple murmurs of yes. Edric nodded very seriously along, having exploded plenty of fireworks.

"Congrats! That's a chemical reaction. Y'know what uses chemicals? Potion magic. Fertilizer! That's Plant and Abominations. Oracle work? It's a form of Illusions mixed with future sight. Y'see what I'm getting at? Wild magic is everywhere, even though the covens tried to contain it into simple bite-sized portions."

Emira raised her hand.

"Shoot, Blight sister."

"My mom always said wild magic was spoken magic," Emira says hesitantly.

"Oh, yeah, you can make magic work with words." Eda waved it off. "There's this great pain-sharing spell that was super popular in the Wild Ages- they used to use it to stop deadly wounds, transferring it smaller and smaller until it was survivable. But my job's mostly to teach you about how to utilize wild magic with what you kids already know. Most of you kids are still learning the basics of multiple tracks, and depending on your ages your parents might have been born into the coven system, so verbal magic is kind of out of your depth. I might be one of the few practicing wild witches who weren't petrified."

Eda lets the silence grow on them as that sinks in, knowing it was a heavy reminder. A lot of people did die for doing magic their own way. Eda was born into the coven system- Belos had been in power for over ten years- but her parents? A lot of their friends just... disappeared. Neither Dell nor Gwen had their sigils until Eda was almost fourteen. And yeah, to these kids who didn't know her, she looked ancient- white hair and wrinkles- but in reality she wasn't. People had been dying for this shit until less than half a year ago, and there was a whole line-up of dead people encased in stone that had yet to be buried during all the commotion.

"You're the new generation, kids," she added. "You've been through the world breaking down, and now we're rebuilding it again. You gotta choose what kind of life you want to create for yourselves. That's the whole point of wild magic. Creating. It's up to you to decide what to do with it. Us old fogeys aren't gonna be around forever to keep tripping over our own fuckups. Someday it's gonna be your turn."

Slapping the board, Eda concluded with a hearty, "So my first lesson is how stupid listening to the government is!"

Author's Note: Ooh it's so much fun to infodump about wild magic. Eda's a perfect vehicle for it, too. She's legitimately a good teacher. She takes things at Luz's pace, she explains it well, and she doesn't knock people for messing up.

I have some fun plot lines planned for this, including Eda teaching about basilisks and why witches shouldn't be scared of them, how curses work, and how to piss off your parents!

-Mandaree1